


Any World Where Promises Were Kept

by hitlikehammers



Series: The World We Forge Unending [3]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And No Government Could Ever Give Them, Black Panther (2018) Post-Credits Scene, Fluff, Healing Steve Rogers, M/M, Nostalgic Steve Rogers, Obvious Metaphors Abound, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War, Shuri Knows Everything, Snarky Shuri, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Supersoldiers in Love, The Best Shields Aren't Made of Vibranium, Welcome to the Vibranium Capital of the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 06:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14278938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: “Because he was first, no?” Shuri asks, more observation than question, really.“Not likethat," she calls Steve's flush out with a smirk; "That is obvious. But there, he is not merely first. He is theonly,” she tilts her head: “thatmatters, at least.”And yes. Bucky was. Buckyis.“But I meant, he was your firstshield, no?”Steve stops short at that; at the words as much as the way they’re said, like it’s clear. Unquestioned.“And perhaps again,” Shuri tacks on knowingly; “the only one that matters, still.”





	Any World Where Promises Were Kept

**Author's Note:**

> The next installment’s with Bucky and T'Challa; so I suppose, without planning it, that it made sense for this one to be Shuri and Steve.
> 
> As ever: if you want to start at the _very_ beginning of the tale, post _Civil War_ : [No End To This Thing](http://archiveofourown.org/series/455365)
> 
> If you want to follow some Steve/Bucky learning to feel safe(ish) and heal and be _together_ in Wakanda, pre- _Infinity War_ , as well as having deep meaningful conversations/deep meaningful snark-battles with Shuri, Nakia, and T'Challa: [The World We Forge Unending](http://archiveofourown.org/series/892896)—ther will be a few more installments before _Infinity War_ in *counts days and is too tired to be accurate because she doesn't know what day TODAY is*, well, in however many days between right now and 25 April. Yep.
> 
> Love—so very, _very_ much— to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad), without whom I'd never get anything written, let alone a lot of other things that I'd never manage <3
> 
> Title credit [here](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/shield-achilles).

Shuri’s lab is magnificent. 

No, really: Steve’s spent a lot of time around things that defy logic and imagination, technology and innovation in the flesh that exceed any realm of fiction he can dream—but this.

This is _incredible_.

And it’s only her _field lab_.

 _The repairs were so extensive,_ , she’d explained, when Steve had realized she was originally based out of the palace complex itself; _that I thought, well, time for some upgrades! What is it that wonderful woman on that show says,_ she lifts a finger as she thinks, before lighting up and exclaiming:

_Treat yourself!_

Apparently, the teenagers at one of the outreach sites had convinced her to watch Netflix with them. Her final verdict was that the streaming platform itself was unbearably amateur, but some of the content was genuinely fantastic.

Point being: Shuri had had something bigger and better and more well-equipped than this place, and it was now going to be _even bigger and better and more well-equipped_ when the work on it was done.

And _this_ place is amazing enough.

 _And_ the work on her new lab has apparently been in-progress for around a year now, and Steve doesn’t know if he’s ready, like, as a person who does in fact recall what a telegram looks like—he’s not sure what he’ll do with the magnitude of witnessing whatever is going to come of the finished product.

“You’re about as subtle as a pipe bomb.”

Steve’s long learned to differentiate between startling inwardly and outwardly. Outwardly, he’s mostly shaken any signs of it—the serum and conditioning and life, generally, took care of that.

Inwardly, however: there are still a handful of people who can surprise him. Bucky, all the fucking time—obviously. Though the rest he hasn’t seen in—

Well.

He hasn’t seen them for a while, now, and so he can’t say if they’ll still surprise him. He figures, though, that some things don’t change. Or else: there _have_ to be some things, that don’t change.

Regardless, though: Shuri’s uncanny, borderline-terrifying ability to know everything that’s going on around her—because Steve hadn’t been _trying_ to be undetectable, exactly, but he’d been trying to be _quiet_ , and for him that’s usually one and the same—but with Shuri?

Shuri’s ability to call him out does, in fact, startle him from across the room.

Inwardly. Inwardly, he is startled. So he’s never going to admit it, of course.

But again: she’s got an uncanny ability to know _everything_ , so she probably knows that, too.

“Pipe bombs can be subtle,” Steve says, not-entirely-petulantly, but then again, not entirely _not_ , as he crosses to her work station.

She snorts. “Name one subtle pipe bomb.”

Steve frowns, not because he actually takes a second to think about it, because he does not.

No.

“You don’t _name_ pipe bombs.”

“Hmm, well,” Shuri looks up from her screen slyly as Steve approaches. “Seems you cannot refute my point, then, Mr. Unsubtle.”

“Original,” Steve flips back, but he just gets a noncommittal hum in reply.

Though it’s not like he expects it’d be that easy to get one up on her, so he can’t say he’s even disappointed.

“Whatcha working on?”

Shuri sighs, but it’s with a smile.

“Something that will no doubt be needed by my beloved brother,” she says with a nod to specs that Steve vaguely notes as having electrical impulses indicated, but that’s honestly all he can read. “He doesn’t know this yet, of course, but he rarely does.”

Steve chuckles at that, a clear image from a time gone by coming to mind in vivid color: the voices, the feeling of the heat at the back of his neck and the scent of daffodils and fresh baking in the air. 

“What?”

Shuri shakes him from his stupor, the lazy-warm haze of recollection; he blinks back to the present quick, all bright lights against steel and darkness—cold, really, if he’s honest, but he runs hot these days. He thinks it’s more comforting, more familiar to the man he is than it ever could have been for the boy he was.

The man he is may have found that sun, the open stove stiflingly. 

He doesn’t know what to do with that, so he focuses on Shuri, who’s watching him sort through it all with endless patience; they don’t deserve her, really. 

But then, he’s pretty sure she knows that, so maybe that dampens the sentiment. To a point. 

“You remind me of Bucky’s baby sister,” Steve smiles, because Shuri’s completely different from Becca, licking batter off a spoon in Steve’s memories and telling Steve where he’d got his math homework wrong even though it was years ahead of her own curriculum; and then he blinks again and thinks a little differently, and suddenly she’s not so different at all.

“So,” Shurri glances up at him knowingly, raising a brow: “also _your_ baby sister.”

Steve pauses, and it strikes him hard for the first time in god knows how long how true that statement is, and had he thought about it then like he should have? And how the hell had he failed to think about it _now_?

He breathes. He thinks about family. He thinks about the people he misses and the person he never has to miss again and the way a heart can beat without living, and can come back to life again with just a glance and a touch and Steve reaches, and thinks about just how many lives he’s lived, and how many families, real or imagined, partial and imperfect, that he’s ever known. 

“I guess so, yeah,” he says, after a few moments, because yeah. The Barnes’ were always more family than anything else, even outside of what Steve felt for one Barnes in particular. 

“How do I remind you of this sister?” Shuri presses, demanding him back in the present, and he’s grateful for that more than he knows how to say. 

“Snarky as hell.” The eyebrow she’s already got raised sneaks a little higher. “Sharp as a tack,” and she doesn’t smile, but her eyes dance, and Steve’s come to the conclusion that that’s actually better. 

“Smartest person in the room,” he says in all truth, though the scales are skewed, and they’re in very different rooms now, than Steve ever imagined could even _exist_ —but Shuri grins knowing, nodding a little in approval; of Steve’s acknowledgement of the obvious, and maybe in imagining this person a century removed that meant the world to two kids in Brooklyn, once upon a time.

“ _Particularly_ ,” he adds, smiling wider as he remembers, as the past and the present stop comparing to one another so starkly, and begin to complement, to exist together and make him, _him_ —something he’s still learning, but that’s getting easier, especially when Shuri looks at him with expectant amusement as he makes to finish: 

“Particularly when the room’s filled with her older brother and his knuckleheaded friends,” he winks playfully, and she laughs, and Steve thinks he never could have expected the world to fit like it does now. It’s not perfect, and it’s not fixed— _he’s_ not fixed—but he’s learning that’s not the point. 

“Should I pass that along to His Majesty?” Shuri asks mischievously.

“If you like,” Steve shrugs a shoulder with a smile; “he strikes me as the sort of man who knows the truth of it already.”

Shuri’s smile broadens.

“ _Good_ answer.”

“I know, right?”

Steve doesn’t even try to dampen it: he beams, full-teeth and everything—he’s fucking _proud_ of himself for earning that kind of praise. 

He leans over and peers at her holoscreen, a big curved there-but-not-there field of whatever-it-is that Steve doesn’t quite bother to understand because it’s not immediately relevant to, looking at the glowing lines that connect and the techy words in Shuri’s script crammed in the margins. 

“Is that like,” he points to something that kind of looks familiar; “claws?”

“Less offensive, more defensive,” she answers, too quick for it to be the whole story, and likewise, she dismisses the whole of the project spec with a wave of her hand too fluidly before turning to Steve with a pointed look. 

“But you of all people would likely understand that those two things are not mutually exclusive.”

Steve inclines his head.

“Point.”

It’s true enough.

“Do you miss it?” she asks him without prelude, without remorse. It’s a sore subject, still, but it’s scarring over; getting tougher and less painful to poke at each day. 

“I’m not sure,” Steve answers honestly before he pauses, adds: “it was heavier than it looked.”

Shuri smiles unexpectedly, at that. 

“What?” Steve asks, trying to parse it out but she just shakes her head before she answers. 

“When we made the one he gave you as a gift,” she explains, “that’s precisely what he asked. That it had no colors, and that it was as light as we could manage.”

Steve sees the symbolism immediately; they’ve played around with the shields more than once, and even a few times _without_ it being a deliberate and overdone form of foreplay (which Steve enjoys immensely, because he’s of the solid opinion that that’s the best kind). The new shield is lighter, faster, more precise than his ever was—not to disparage Howard’s sheer talent, but partially, Steve, figures, because it was made by people who know exactly what they’re doing with the materials it’s made from. But to know, for sure, that it was Bucky’s intention, for what that implies?

It warms Steve’s chest from the center outward, and his heart thumps pleasantly at the thought.

God, he’s so fucking in love. He’s not sure he can figure out, eve if he tried at it hard enough—he’s not particularly inclined to bother, to be honest, with so many better places to concentrate his energy, not least in the bedroom with Bucky at his side—but he doesn’t think he could ever figure out, precisely, how he ever lived without it: so few years those were, with the feeling only ever growing, rather than ever even hinting to recede.

“He is not particularly light.”

Steve frowns a little, and eyes her with a question. It’s not the first thing she’s ever said that he doesn’t understand, of course, but this one's right out of left field. 

“James,” Shuri clarifies; “he has lost consciousness in my presence before and required moving before he woke again. I can vouch.”

Steve tries to dismiss the flash of concern at Bucky losing consciousness; he doesn’t have much time to dwell before Shuri’s picking up the strain of conversation again, this time with a lewd thread in her tone that warns Steve of what’s to come before it does. 

“Though I suppose _you_ know this from a rather different vantage point. Of course.”

Steve does not focus at all on the fact that she’s aware of this enough to have spent any of her precious time _creating ear plugs_ to drown out how _heavy_ Bucky can be. Against Steve. Beneath Steve.

Just, yeah. Steve does not focus on that, not at all.

“Because he was first, no?”

Steve’s head’s still in the bedroom, and he supposes it wouldn’t be hard to guess it for anyone, let alone someone who’s come to know him so well, but his breath catches like it always does, as if he’s being ‘found out’, somehow. 

“Not like that,” she clarifies quickly; “that part’s _obvious_ ,” she declares it, as if the deduction being a surprise is categorically _beneath_ her. “There, he is not merely first. He is _only_ ,” she tilts her head: “that _matters_ , at least.”

And it’s true. There were none before, and very few since, and Steve’s never been one for “casual” sex exactly, but he was never anything but up front with his handful of partners, and made damn sure they were on the same page. And did it matter, ever, in light of what he’d lost to compare to, and what he’s found to live out beyond all possibility or praying?

Not even close.

“But he was your first _shield_ , no?”

Steve stops short at that; at the words as much as the way they’re said, like it’s obvious.

“And perhaps again,” Shuri tacks on knowingly; “the only one that matters, still.”

“I—”

Shuri smiles. “You are adorable when you blush.”

And yep. He’d thought his cheeks felt particularly hot, and yep: Bucky was the first, the one he’s always trusted most despite how invincible the literal one was meant to be. The only one he ever wanted forever, would never let go of, would sacrifice every other version of it, every other thing in the whole world for.

All he needed, then to now, to whatever is next.

“I wonder,” Shuri interjects into his lovesick thoughts once more, and shakes his attention back to where she’s eyeing him with a joyful combination of amusement and something close to being endeared. “Did you come here for something other than my unparalleled company and brilliant conversation?”

Steve clears his throat.

“I did, actually.”

“I require 20% up front,” Shuri announces as a matter of course, crossing her arms over her chest as she considers him.

Smartest person in the room, like he said.

“Maybe not a shield,” Steve couches, but Shuri just smirks.

“Because you don’t need one?” she baits him, but Steve’s already bushing, and he’s been learning these last months how to admit to what’s in his heart aloud, as firm as he feels it, and he’s been getting fairly good at it, if he does say so himself.

“Because you’re right,” Steve answers plainly; “I already have one.”

“Sentimental.” The tone she uses isn’t without judgement, but he’s not sure it’s a bad sort of judgement, so he can’t bring himself to mind. 

“Still true,” is all he says, because it’s the only thing in the world that fits in answer. 

“I was thinking,” he ventures: “a new suit?”

Shuri looks at him blankly, and so Steve backtracks on instinct.

“If it’s not too much trouble, I mean—”

“Oh, Steven,” Shuri says, like she pities his intellect, or lack thereof.

“Of _course_ there is a suit for you.”

And this time, it’s Steve who stares blankly for a long stretch of seconds. Because they’d asked him, sure, but he’d said no, and, and—

“But—”

“But you were not ready!” Shuri says with broad gestures of her hands. “Of course you were not ready, but this did not mean you would _never_ be ready,” she spreads her arms wide. “I know your sort, you understand.” And then her expression, her enthusiasm sobers just a little, dims just a touch. “And I know this world.”

Steve doesn’t change his expression, exactly, but he keeps staring, and eventually Shuri huffs and adds on:

“Alright, fine. I know this world,” she revises; “and I _banked_ on the likelihood you would not let _him_ go into battle without _you_. When the time came.” Her voice softens alongside her features; 

“Whether or not you were ready.”

And that’s true. That may be one of the truest things in the world. He’ll never let Bucky go to war without him ever again.

 _Ever_ again.

“I also really love playing around with new designs,” Shuri admits flippantly; “ask T’Challa about the line I designed for him when he returned from that squabble of yours in Russia.”

And maybe they’re more alike, or Steve’s closer to her, more observant, more on her wavelength than he thought: he knows that the casual mention of those days when she lost her own father must still hurt, even if it’s healed some with time, and Steve doesn’t say anything, and she looks relieved and grateful under anything, if you’re paying attention.

And Steve is. And he’s ready to take up the post of bringing her back to the now.

“So,” he drawls a little, leaning against a long desktop. “20% up front, but it’s already made,” he sucks his lower lip and raises a brow. “So what, raincheck?”

And Shuri snorts, and that was the point after all, and Steve counts it as a win.

“James is right, Steven,” she says blandly; “You really _are_ a punk.” 

Steve’s long stopped hearing that word as an insult, anyway. But even when it’s not in Bucky’s voice, now, he thinks it’s more an endearment on the whole.

She’s walking away to a corner and riffling about for a long moment before bringing him a long, monochrome slip of fabric that looks more like a cowl alone than anything resembling a suit but he’s learned, particularly when it comes to Wakandan tech: _looks are deceiving_ is the biggest understatement ever uttered.

“Try it _on_ ,” she urges; more commands, really, shoving it at Steve and Steve, well.

Steve knows better than to argue the point.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
